


Oh, this is suicide...But you can't see the ropes., a FrUK drabble

by crashedtimemachine (snowonpalecheeks)



Series: Tumblr Snippets from bloodonthebattlefield [3]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, FrUK, Grief/Mourning, Guitars, M/M, Married Characters, Married Couple, Musical Instruments, Singing, Triggers, painter!France, singer-songwriter!England
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-16
Updated: 2014-06-16
Packaged: 2018-02-04 20:26:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1792099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowonpalecheeks/pseuds/crashedtimemachine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Arthur performed the song, it wasn't supposed to be to a crowd of strangers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oh, this is suicide...But you can't see the ropes., a FrUK drabble

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this image...
> 
>  
> 
> [](http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=6243278)

**London, England  
modern human AU, ** **established FrUK**

The beat is off by a breath, and for once, he doesn't even care.

His bare fingertips, calloused from strumming, bear out his pain in the chords they play. If anyone notices the occasional tear sliding down his cheek to hang from the precipice of his chin before dripping to his paint-stained knee...well, how very observant they are.

What do they want from him, anyway? He's exposing his soul to them, raw and brittle with emotional strain. In a faded black t-shirt and jeans that hang a little loose around his hips and streaked with Francis's acrylics (because, well, they're _his_  jeans, of course), he plays the new song he'd been working on, incrementally, over the last year. It was to be for their anniversary.

It was a gift for Francis.

He wasn't supposed to play it for the first time looking out over the drunken audience of a seedy, dim pub, not a familiar face in the place. There were no steady blue eyes trained on him as the first words left his lips. No lips expectantly parted as Arthur publicly admitted to the feelings he'd barely been able to in private for so very long.

In his pocket, one of Francis's ridiculous ribbons is twisted into knots and fraying at the tips. As he goes about his daily life, his fingers wrap in and out of the ribbon, this way and that, in constant contact with his personal totem. 

Because it's all he has left.

A minor chord sets off the word "forever" with a pained honesty to which no one in the crowd is immune, and he ends the song on a down note, the once joyful words now weighted and heavy with grief. 

With anger. 

At Francis.

Francis has been gone for three months, but for Arthur it could have been three decades. His life is a mess. He barely shows up for work, and his paychecks have become as thin and pitiful as Arthur himself. He just doesn't see a reason for any of it, and he's had to admit, if only to himself, that without Francis...there's no point.

So he plays the song he wrote for his beautiful husband and he lets the tears fall, and hopefully, he takes a step closer to knowing what the hell to do now.

..

**Author's Note:**

> So…this happened. It was unintentional. Francis killed himself (see statistics for suicide in France for some heavy numbers) and Arthur is left behind to, well, try to carry on. He sort of accidentally destroyed a lot of Francis’s stuff when he was drunk and raging after he died. :\ And he carries the ribbon everywhere; it’s his security blanket. If he loses it, he panics and he has to find it immediately. Antonio and Gilbert are doing what they can, but they’re in mourning, too. And really, at home, there’s just a big empty bed, and a big empty house, and Francis’s paintings on the walls (that are mostly of Arthur, himself), and he just can’t take it anymore.


End file.
